Main menu

Legal Recruitment News June 2017

June 7, 2017

Legal Job Market Report dated June 7th 2017

Summary
May has been a month very much affected by world events, half term and 2 bank holiday Mondays. Traditionally we have had a month of solid work as we enter the summer recruitment season (the busiest time of year for recruitment agencies is May to mid-July). Locum work got busy at the start of May but we have been quiet for the past few weeks. Permanent posts have been steadily trickling in, but we have ended the month in a fairly quiet phase. Both locum and permanent vacancies have decreased in number over the month, although we have had a significant number of assignments booked up and vacancies filled.

Locum hourly rates have picked up a bit but there is considerable regional variation. Plenty of locums available for Greater London but a shortage in other areas of the UK. It remains the case that availability rather than price one of the key factors for a lot of new assignments.

Hourly Rates of Pay for Locum Solicitors and Legal Executives

Conveyancing rates have crept up a bit over the last four weeks, as we enter the busy period, but they are still low. Conveyancing locums looking for £35 an hour and above will find higher levels of competition still exist with experienced conveyancers still available for around £28-32 per hour. For some firms this is almost certainly going to be the maximum level paid and locums need to bear this in mind…

As I write this brief article, I can reflect that I could probably have written the same article in any year between 2011 and 2017. In fact if you are reading this in 20 years’ time, and Donald Trump hasn’t ended the world as we know it, chances are the information and advice in the article will be the same. I have focussed on locum roles – on the permanent side it is still very difficult to recruit conveyancing and private client staff – there is a severe shortage of candidates.

Are Conveyancing Locums in Demand?

A private client solicitor called me today and said that she knew that conveyancing solicitors were in massive demand for locum work and that firms (including her own) couldn’t get hold of them at the moment. She knew that there is a lot of need for locum conveyancers but what about locum private client solicitors?

I was very surprised to hear this. Apart from short term conveyancing locum roles in areas with high levels of tourism in the summer we can usually get at least one locum conveyancer CV to any law firm in England and Wales within a few hours for cover of one week to one year.

CV Blooper(s) of the Month

This is taken from a law student’s CV:

“I went to watch a court case in the old bailey where a young man was being cross examined (a term I learned there ) for a drug charge. He represented himself without a lawyer and I was surprised by the strength of his rebuttals (another term I learned there) and also by how eloquently and respectfully everybody talked in the court. When leaving I decided that I was a bit more sure that I wanted to ingeniously use a thorough knowledge of the law as a career. I decided to enter a Cambridge Law essay competition where the question was “Should we repeal the human rights act 1998 “. The effort and private study I put into this essay was proof enough for me that I was compatible with a law career. I naturally feel I gravitate towards law, I love writing, studying and thinking about it. I haven’t been able to get an opportunity to explore any fields of law which I hope to do in summer.”

How to review your own CV

We recently received a CV from a candidate with the following advice placed at the bottom. I have edited it for a bit of content – eg the writer recommended 2 pages max but we think a CV can be as long as it needs to be for someone with experience. The remainder is a very effective and useful guide to reviewing your own CV.

CV Guide

1.

Check and recheck for spelling and grammar. Attention to detail is absolutely key so ensure dates, names of companies etc are all correct and never use abbreviations or colloquialisms. Ask someone you trust to proof read your CV as a new pair of eyes can often be useful in identifying mistakes.

Any interest in getting further information? Please email cv@ten-percent.co.uk and we’ll get back with firm names etc..

Questions to our Recruitment Consultants via our Chat Service

Ask a Recruitment Consultant – questions this month on our chat bot

Questions sent to us via our new Chat service online, together with general career questions emailed across. We do our best to answer all queries, sometimes after a fairly lengthy delay if we are busy!

Why is there a shortage of private client solicitors and so many vacancies?

(Q: Why do you have lots of short extracts and no articles in this newsletter? A: If we don’t we get penalised by Google for repeating content. One of those very frustrating by products of the SEO Industry..)